


lying half-buried

by tosca1390



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-21
Updated: 2012-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-05 18:58:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It surprises her to find him in her room, the shutters wide open to the spring dusk. Really, it shouldn't.</i> Spoilers for <i>Fade to Black</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lying half-buried

*

It surprises her to find him in her room, the shutters wide open to the spring dusk. Really, it shouldn't.

"You went home," Rukia says quietly, sliding the door shut behind her. The mansion is silent; her brother tends to repairs, with the other captains and the commander-general. She is supposed to be recuperating, or so Captain Unohana says. 

He isn’t a part of that plan, she thinks. 

Ichigo, stretched out along the length of her bed, glances at her. The smile that curls his mouth is amused; his gaze isn't. "Changed my mind."

"The gate doesn't just open and close at your beck and call," she murmurs, a flush already warm on her throat. She’s not ready for this, for whatever is coming. The cliff had been enough for her, for them; she thinks of the letter slipping through her fingers, the taste of past lives and possession on the roof of her mouth. 

She’s tired, and she can’t keep up the weight of constancy with him looking at her that way. 

He folds his hands over his chest. His eyes are very dark, flecks of gold heavy in them. Sometimes, when she looks at him, she thinks she's seeing someone else all together. It coalesces into what she knows of him always at some point, but still; there are parts of him that remain a mystery. 

"Yeah, it kinda does," he says.

"You're an idiot," she says, moving to stand at the window. His gaze settles on her, too warm and too hard.

Byakuya had insisted she stay at the mansion, a sort of apology for forgetting her, she thinks. The air still smells of smoke and darkness, even as the damage begins to clear. White peaks of particles still linger, cleared slowly but surely. She can taste it in the air. Still, as cool and as calm as she was on the cliff with Ichigo before, she holds it too close, the sensation of violation, of loss. The scar Aizen left at her chest aches with it; it's just another fault line for her.

There is another scar, below it, edging her belly. It is pink and new and ribboned over her skin. She feels it, and doesn’t mind. It’s Ichigo, on her in body and mind.

“My brother –“ she starts, and he snorts. “Ichigo.”

He rises to sit on the edge of her pallet, keeping her gaze. She feels the warmth rise at her throat. In the back of her mind, Shirayuki hums and coos, a reassurance. 

“We, uh, have an understanding,” Ichigo drawls. 

She snorts, shutting her eyes. “An understanding.”

“He knows I’m here.”

“You’re ridiculous,” she mutters, flattening her hands over her belly. Her robes pucker under her palms. 

She aches, feels too small for her body. It is the weight of the siblings still lingering, though they have passed on. Still, there is hollowness. She doesn’t feel it as harshly, when he’s here. He’s too much, overmuch in the space and the flowery air. His energy plucks at hers, hums over her skin. 

“You don’t have to stay,” she murmurs, mouth turning. There’s a cool breeze at her throat. Spring is near. 

"You're not okay," he says at last, blunt as anything.

"Go home," she says, shaking her head.

"Not this time," he retorts.

Her fingers curl into the windowsill. She has spent so little real time in this room, this house, and now he is here, pressing her when all she wants is to push it away.

He was the only one to remember her. She still doesn't understand what it means.

“Not this time?” she parrots, finally looking at him. 

Ichigo sits and watches her. His gaze is heavy, and she knows it. There’s a reverberation in her middle with it, warm and flickering and sharp. 

“I let you send me home before. Now, I’m smarter,” he says. 

She sighs and leans her hip against the windowsill. “Do you think so?”

He smirks, a small twist of his mouth. It colors and changes his face into something sharper. “C’mon,” he murmurs, nodding at her. 

“There’s nothing you can do,” she says, even as she pushes away from the window and skirts towards the edge of the bed. 

“We can talk,” he says, leaning forward. His hair falls across his brow, his Shinigami robes loose at his throat. His hands reach out and catch at the belt of her robes, tugging her between his knees. 

“No,” she says immediately. It’s instinctual, keeping her words to herself, buried deep. Even with him, there is a level of defense. It’s how she survives. A hand falls to his shoulder. The other stays tucked over her belly. “Ichigo –“

He leans in, his arm sliding across the small of her back. His chin settles over the hand at her stomach. “You’re important,” he murmurs, and she can feel the flush rise on her cheeks. “That freaks you the fuck out, huh.”

“Stop it.” 

“I won’t,” he says, gaze hot on hers. “Where would I be?”

It crawls over her, the strange sensations of knowing and not knowing. Seeing him the first time, with the siblings behind her, it wasn’t the first time she felt it; she knew him, and yet did not know him. It is reminiscent of their real first meeting, when she knew him, but didn’t. It’s all sensation and instinct for the two of them. She wonders how far their first meetings really go back. 

“Where would I be?” he repeats. 

She shuts her eyes for a moment. Her fingers curl into the loose collar of his robes, touching warm taut skin at his throat. 

“Do you think it’s been more than once?” she asks softly. 

His face shifts against her hand, his mouth opening at her knuckles. “I told you so.”

Shirayuki hums in the back of Rukia’s mind. The air cools around them. Rukia swallows and slides her knuckles along the line of his throat. 

“I think there’s more to it,” she says. “We’re missing pieces.”

Shrugging, he ghosts his lips over her hand. She shivers. “The past is the past, and whatever is happening next – well, whatever.”

“That’s eloquent,” she mutters. 

His hand covers hers on her belly, pulling it aside. “Is there –“

“Yes,” she cuts him off. 

It’s slow, the way he pulls back. Her hand lingers at his throat. An arm still at her back, he pulls at the belt of her robes with his other hand. She bites at the inside of her lip. 

“I won’t, if you –“

She silences him by pulling the folds of her robes aside herself. The cool air touches her bare skin, rippling it into gooseflesh. The scar is there, long at the end of her sternum and stretching into her stomach. It still stretches and aches, newly knitted together. 

Ichigo’s fingers slide over it; her skin hums and flushes, and she feels him in it, again. 

“You gave me one, too,” he says. He doesn’t look at her. 

“So this was revenge?” she teases. Humor is all they have sometimes. 

His palm covers the scar. He tips his head up to look at her, color high on his cheeks. There is amber there in his eyes, and gold heavy at the pupils. “Rukia.”

“I don’t mind it,” she says plainly, as her hand rises from his throat to his hair, thick and warm. 

“Of course you don’t,” he says after a long moment. His fingers flex against her stomach, cautious with the pink ribbon of a scar under his palm. “I gave it to you.”

“You’re an idiot,” she says, shaking her head. Still, she blushes. 

The arm around her waist tightens. He pulls her down to the bed pallet. She stretches and spreads over his lap, her knees sinking into the mattress. His hand drags over his stomach as he leans in to catch her mouth with his. She shuts her eyes and curls an arm over his neck, her mouth opening against his. The warmth of his skin sinks into hers. 

“I will never not come for you,” he murmurs against her mouth. 

“Don’t,” she breathes against his mouth, annoyed. “Don’t be an idiot and _promise_ –“

“It’s not a promise,” he retorts. His hand skims over and over the plane of her stomach, tracing dips and the scar. His fingers slide up over her sternum to the heavy white scar from Aizen, another one she carries. It’s a reminder. “I’ll always come.”

She shakes her head, hair falling soft against her throat. “You’re – god, sometimes I just hate you,” she says, and she’s tired, so tired, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “I hate you, and you were supposed to go _home_ –“

“Rukia.”

“You went _home_ , and here we wouldn’t talk about it, and now – _fuck_ you,” she snaps, as her hands press into her face, covering her eyes. There is a burn at the back of her eyes, but she refuses – _refuses_ – to cry. 

His arm curls around her, his hand broad and flat at her shoulder blades. “Everyone here is fucking stupid,” he says bluntly, his voice near her ear. His hand slides up and down the curve of her spine. “And I knew – I knew you’d just smile and say you were _fine_.”

“Because you _never_ do that,” she chokes out dryly. 

She can feel his grin against her ear, her temple. In the space and breadth of his arms and shoulders she is bracketed, and she feels awkwardly safe. It’s unfamiliar, except with him. It reminds her of his mouth at her hair, his hand across her back and his sword deep in her belly. They are a list of parallels and choices, she thinks. 

“I know, I know. Hypocrite.”

“Idiot moron hypocrite,” she retorts. 

“But – you don’t have to be like that,” he says quietly. 

She pulls her hands from her face, settling them in her lap. Her eyes are wet but her gaze is clear as she looks at him. 

“We don’t have to be like that,” he says. “You’re – fuck, you’d never let me just walk away. You never have. How could I do it to you?”

Sighing, she reaches up and tugs at his robes over his chest. “You wouldn’t,” she says quietly. 

“Fuckin’ right.”

Her eyes roll, mouth twisting. “You’re such – “ 

She can’t continue because he is kissing her again, his mouth a wide smirk. She swallows his laugh and shifts forward, pushing him flat onto his back, into the thin mattress. His hands sink into her stomach, pulling her heavy on top of him. Their mouths slide and shift against each other, tongues and lips and just breaths between them. 

“Everyone here – they’re out of their fucking minds,” he mutters as he flexes his fingers, slips a hand between her thighs as she straddles him. Her robes slide off of her shoulders and she shrugs them off to pool at their feet. 

“It’s the system,” she murmurs, dragging her hands over his chest. Her teeth bite at his lips as his thumb circles her clit. She is wet now, soft under his touch and open for his touch. She sighs, bowed over him. Her hair falls across her cheeks and throat, the edges touching his face. 

Ichigo curls one, two fingers into her and bites at her mouth, face hot. She can feel it, the frustration rolling under his skin. It’s too heavy for her right now; she presses back, her palms at his chest as she pulls his robes open. Her fingertips are cool against his skin, a reminder. 

“It makes me – it makes me want to keep you with me,” he says, a halting sort of confession. 

She moans softly against his mouth, shaking her head. There are allowances they’ve made, for her and for him; this, right here, is one of them. 

“It can’t happen that way,” she murmurs. Her scars ache as he touches her, slides in and out. 

Ichigo tilts his head back and stares at her. She can feel the sweat at the nape of her neck, her skin flushing. Still she is cool against him, as her fingers slide down his thighs to touch him, hard and slick under her thumb. 

“Why the fuck not? Every time you come back here, _something_ happens,” he mutters. His eyes go wide, pupils blown dark, as her fingers slide and curl around his length. 

“This is where I belong,” she says, as his mouth opens for her, and her fingers twist. 

It’s weak; even now, she doesn’t believe it, she thinks. There is a strength she has on her own, with her own power to sustain her; and then there is what she is with him, the joining of their energies and swords. Each positioning is separate from Soul Society; sometimes, she thinks they are suppressing the both of them, or trying to. 

But tonight she’s tired of conspiracies and events and _thinking_ , remembering the past she has tried not to carry. She just wants to swallow him, to have him curl around her, to feel the hot weight of him against her. He’s heavy as his fingers slide from between her legs and he turns them, pushing her back into the bed. Her palm slides against his dick as he settles over her. Her legs spread and he is there, filling all the negative space. 

His fingertips are at her clit again as she helps his slow slide into her, the fill and press inside. She tilts her head back and moans, low and hard. Her throat still aches from before, from the screams. 

Ichigo’s mouth closes over her throat. “No. _Here_ ,” he murmurs as he moves inside of her, as his hands clutch at hers. He is a warm weight over her and she sighs, the warmth unfurling in her belly and spreading out. Her skin is flushed and she shuts her eyes. His heart beats near hers, pressed chest to chest. 

“Here,” she repeats, breathing stilted and sharp. Everything is a contrast; she is soft and cool and wet as he presses his hips against hers, and he is heavy and hot, his teeth hard at her throat. 

Still, always, it is his voice at her skin, his energy settling against hers. She comes with the taste of it on her lips, his mouth covering hers in a thick kiss. 

His hand settles at her fresh scar. She covers it too. 

Later, he moves his mouth over it, flushed against her pale stomach and sternum. She twines her fingers into his hair as he settles between her legs. The room is cool again, full of breezes and the smell of spring. Still she has sand in her throat and dust in her nose. The hot sun of Inuzari is hard to shake from her skin. 

“I meant what I said,” he tells her at last. His hair brushes against her skin, his eyes bright in the dusky room. 

“When?” she asks, thoughts far away. 

Ichigo mouths along the curve of her stomach. “On the cliff. Here. I meant it.”

He is serious, decidedly so; his mouth softens as he watches her. His hands are curled around her waist, tangled in the light sheets. She cards her fingers through his hair, her thumbs touching his brow. 

She could tell him about Inuzari, fill in the blanks of what he has assumed and what he has learned. But, she thinks he understands, no matter what facts he might be lacking. He knows, just as she knows of him; it’s how they fit and work together. It’s how she knows he is a constant, and isn’t scared of it. 

So, she sits up and leans over at the waist. He stretches up and her mouth slides over his, soft and wet and gentle. “I know,” she says. 

It’s enough. 

*


End file.
